The
town of Wertheim, which is located about 40 kilometers
to the west of Würzburg on the confluence of the rivers
Main and Tauber in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, is
well-known for its many splendid funeral monuments and
epitaphs of the counts of Wertheim and their successors,
the counts of Löwenstein, in the Stiftskirche.[1] Further
monuments and tomb slabs of citizens, clerics, and
others have been preserved vis-à-vis in the delightful
late gothic Kilianskapelle, and among them there is one
of the most intriguing late medieval monuments of the
region: The tomb slab commemorating a man called Hans
Has in the guise of a court jester by an unknown local
sculptor (fig. 1).[2]

Measuring 182 by 102 centimeters, the sandstone slab
shows Has’s less than lifesize effigy, which is carved
in high relief and retains some of its original paint.
Standing on a dog, he wears a robe that is partly
buttoned down his chest, belted at the waist, and ends
in what appears to be a broad ornamental border covering
his knees and thus most of his hosed legs, which are
stuck in heavy thigh boots; the ample sleeves are
gathered at the wrists and reveal the cuffs of his
shirt, which can also be seen on his upper chest where
some of the buttons are left open. What marks this
outfit as a fool’s or jester’s costume, however, is the
pocket in the righthand sleeve with its two rather
damaged flutes and of course the hood emerging from the
robe’s collar with its two ass’s ears with bells and a
coxcomb down the centre.[3] This style
of fool’s attire is typical for the time around 1500 as
a number of Netherlandish paintings of laughing fools
show, which in their turn inspired Heinrich Vogtherr the
Younger’s woodcut of a fool of c. 1540 (fig. 2).[4] Unlike
these merry fools, however, the finely sculpted face of
Hans Has looks worried, if not downright distressed: his
brow is furrowed, his crudely repainted wide-open eyes
are directed heavenwards, and the corners of his mouth
beneath the chipped-off nose point downwards. All
merriment is gone as Has prepares to meet his maker, and
it is certainly no coincidence that his haggard features
are reminiscent of the suffering faces that feature in
many of Tilman Riemenschneider’s masterly altarpieces
and crucifixes carved in nearby Würzburg, which had a
great influence on the development of sculpture
throughout the region. The religious component is
furthermore stressed by the badly damaged rosary in his
right hand, of which only a few beads survive though its
outline is still traceable.[5]
The monument also documents Hans’s social standing as a
member of a family which had prospered by its close
contacts to the court as the shield with his canting
arms of a running hare (“Hase”) in his left hand
demonstrates

The effigy is framed by an insciption which reads: “Anno
/ d[omi]ni / mo / cccco / lxxx /
xi / jar / an aller / sellen / tag / starb / hans / has
/ geborn / von / remling / reuter / hans ge[ann]nt / der
/ gewesen / ist / ein / getrewer / diner / der /
herschaft / d[em] / g[ott] / g[nade]” (In the year of
the Lord 1491 on All Souls’ Day died Hans Has, born at
Remlingen, called Hans the rider, who was a faithful
servant of the sovereignty, on whom God may have mercy).[6]
Archival records confirm that Hans Has, whose parents
are unkown, was born in the nearby village of Remlingen
into a family with connections to the county’s
administration. It is uncertain when Has entered the
counts’ employ, but it is assumed that he may already
have worked for count Georg I (+1454), the father of
Has’s master of many years, count Johann III (+1497).
Interestingly, the slab’s inscription does not identify
him as court jester but as “reuter” (i.e. a rider
running errands and acting as messenger for his master).
This is corroborated by other sources which furthermore
identify Has as a juryman and judge in Dertingen, a
village about halfway between his birthplace and
Wertheim. Again, there is no hint whatsoever that he
might also have been employed as court jester.[7]

In his article on a tomb slab featuring, among other
things, an ass playing a bagpipe, Heimo Reintzer has
convincigly refuted the assumption that because of his
attire Hans Has must have been a jester even though he
is not identified as such in the slab’s inscription and
the archival records. Instead, Reintzer argues that
depictions of animals making music and ass-eared fools
with musical instruments (Has, as we have seen, carries
two flutes in his sleeve pocket) often appear as symbols
of mundus reversus,
the world turned upside down, which imply a critique of
the present times and, especially in the case of a
funerary monument, an awareness of the folly and the
futility of all worldly longings and aspirations.[8]
This interpretation also explains the haunted look on
Has’s face as he realizes that his only hope rests in
God on high, whence he has turned his gaze. Consequently
he abjures the gaudy and foolish vanities of his earthly
existence, which are symbolised by his apparel.

Though in the end Hans Has was in all likelyhood not a
jester in real life, his exceptional tomb slab just
across the street from the magnificent monuments of the
counts of Wertheim and Löwenstein in the Stiftskirche
deserves more attention than it has hitherto garnerd.
Late medieval and early modern monuments with depictions
of the deceased in jester’s or fool’s attire are
extremely rare, and the one dedicated to the memory of
Hans Has is one of the earliest, if not the earliest.
Later examples, this time of real jesters, include the
memorial for the famous fourteenth-century fool Till
Eulenspiegel at Mölln, Schleswig-Hollstein, which was
however only errected in 1536, and the tomb slab of Hans
Gerl, the bishop of Passau’s jester, of 1565.[9]

[5]
Cucuel/Eckert and
Vollhardt identify the rosary as a ring of bells
but the comparison with some of the other nearly
contemporary slabs in the Kilianskapelle of
citizens and clerics with rosaries suggests that
Hans also holds a rosary as a sign of his piety.